


The Princess and The Mermaid, A Tale of Transexual

by LSRichards



Category: Rocky Horror Picture Show
Genre: #Planet Transexual #Deva, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 06:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10825539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LSRichards/pseuds/LSRichards
Summary: Transexual, of course, predates RHPS, and is still there, going along as it always has. Here's a story.(A note on the spelling: I am aware that in the play script Richard O'Brien spells the planet's name with two s's, "Transsexual." As that term, with a lower-case t, has in the past been used to describe transgendered or gender-fluid people, and has taken on a pejorative connotation, I prefer the capitol T, one S spelling, to distance the name of the planet from a potential, and unintended, slur.)





	The Princess and The Mermaid, A Tale of Transexual

ONCE upon a time, the latest rage on the planet Transexual was the mermaid at the Sacred Pearl, a casino on the Royal Beach. Perched high in a giant champagne glass, splashing in seawater, she sang every night to a room packed with the planet's richest gamblers. And after she sang the competition began, for legend had it that there existed a secret phrase, a magical combination of words, that when spoken to the mermaid caused her to transform into a human woman...with a woman's anatomy. Whosoever found the words, the legend went, got a shot at the anatomy, and thus “fuck the mermaid” became the planet's hottest game. Every night someone tried, every night someone failed, and the mermaid, fish-tailed and inviolate, swam circles in her bowl and mocked them with a smile. In the few weeks' time since her début, she had become famous, furiously, maddeningly famous, as the only adult creature on the planet that could not be _had._

 

DEVA, Princess of Transexual, could not believe it.

“ _Unfuckable?!” s_ he wailed. “How can anything on this planet be unfuckable?” For although there were organisms on the planet that remained celibate by choice, the very idea of a (presumably) sexual creature that simply _couldn't_ have sex boggled her young mind. For a Princess of Transexual, born and raised to screw with other people's Reality Assumptions, it was a new experience.

She leapt to her feet and stalked to the scrolled railing of the moon-deck, a scaffold appended perilously to the side of her mother's palace, open to the night sky. A hundred meters below, the black ocean crashed and seethed, and the night wind blew cool and shivery. Normally, the combination would have aroused her, but the concept of an unravished mermaid had a hold on her mind. She ran a hand through her black, curly hair (a gift from her genetic sire) and heaved a frustrated sigh. At fifteen, she was accustomed to preferential treatment, to a world bending itself to her whims, to the easy solution to any problem. That the mermaid might be truly...impenetrable? was a possibility her brain refused to accept. The challenge of it fired her blood and ignited every competitive cell in her body.

She brought her clenched fists down on the curved railing and executed a fast spin on the ball of one spike-heeled foot to face the palace. She was a sight to behold, the perfect combination of her parent's genes. Her skin was a smooth, mocha blend of her mother's sable black and her father's blush-white, and she was sleek and firm, toned by a life of dancing and the best sex. The was a bit below the average height, a compact bundle with her mother's width of face and her father's perfect nose. She also had his startling, hazel eyes, made all the more striking by the black ink she wore permanently tattooed around them. At fifteen, she had the bearing and assurance of one born to a life of absolute power, of one who would, in time, come to rule the planet. Fifteen years old, impulsive, dramatic, Heiress to the Throne of Transexual and a male chauvinist's worst nightmare,  _Deva._

“Does anyone know if this mermaid's for real or is it just a clever costume?” she asked aloud of no one in particular. All around the moon-deck lay the offspring of Transexual's most powerful diplomats and leaders, in various stages of undress. They were the princess's friends, sometimes her lovers, and an invitation to the moon-deck was a coveted social coup. Those who had seen the mermaid hastened to assure her that oh, yes, she _looked_ real enough, all right. One of them, Remora D'Maline, daughter of the Count D'maline, smiled inwardly. It was she who had told the princess of the mermaid, and it pleased her to know a thing before the princess and to be the one to break the news. Of course, if you asked her, she was the princess's _closest_ friend, really, she was.

“Do you want to go see her?” she asked, picturing herself sweeping regally into the Sacred Pearl at Deva's side, or maybe, even, in front of her.

Deva toyed with the ties of her tiny, black-silk bikini. She donned a silken wrapper—more to watch it swirl in the wind than for warmth-- and smiled at Remora.

“Okay,” she said. “I'll go see the mermaid.” She waited for Remora to smile that smug smile of hers before adding, _“Tomorrow_ night.” Remora's smirk collapsed and Deva grinned.

“Oh, come on,” she said, crossing to Remora and taking her by the shoulders. “Don't be upset. I'll go with you tomorrow night, I promise. It's just that I have plans to tonight. Okay?” She waited for Remora to give her a petulant smile and then released her. “Now,” she said. “Leave me, all of you. The wind is high and I wish to be alone.”

The others, thinking she wanted privacy for self-pleasure, gave their goodbyes and left, all save one. A servant in plain black, he'd been resting quietly on one of the carved, onyx panthers that flanked the castle door. He knew that if Deva had wished him gone she would have spoken to him personally, and when she did not he crossed his arms over his chest, drew a sigh, and waited.

Deva watched the door close behind her friends and turned to him. “Wanna go see a mermaid?” she asked.

“So you just lied to Remora,” the servant, whose name was Hallow, said. 

“Not at all,” Deva replied. “I will go see the mermaid with her tomorrow. Tonight I have plans...to see her with you. Now,” she added, “hop to. I want to be incognito tonight and you have to help me dress. So get down from there, Hallow. Now.”

Hallow braced one hand on the panther's head and jumped nimbly to the moon-deck floor. Deva, not for the first time, reflected on what a lithe, elegant figure he possessed. Pity she couldn't touch him.

“At your command, Highness,” he said, and followed her into the castle.

 

_A word about the planet Transexual: visiting there is like diving head-first into an intoxicating drink, the kaleidoscopic kind with fruit on the rim, colored straws and an a paper umbrella. In orbit around a hot-but-dim White Dwarf star, it is perpetually dark on the surface but warm year-round, particularly on the equator where sits its capital city and the Queen's palace. What light the star does emit is shifted to the ultra-violet end of the spectrum, and is reflected and magnified by Transexual's triple moons, so a walk there in broad daylight is equivalent to a moonlit summer stroll on Earth. The star's dangerous ultra-violet radiation is screened at the surface by the ozone produced by Transexual's lightning storms, storms to numerous and constant that a lightning bolt was emblazoned on her flag. Colonized by the sexual outcasts of the greater galaxy, she had become a haven of unprecedented sexual tolerance and a thriving tourist destination. Her island chains fostered a diversity both biological and social: she boasts over four thousand species of orchid, for example, and is home to over thirty thousand proclaimed religions. She is a place of lush jungles and black sand beaches, and a warm, fragrant wind blows there that makes even the most repressed of off-world visitors wish to remove their clothes. Nowhere on the planet is this more apparent than on Eros, the largest of the islands and home of the Queen's palace, and nowhere is it more exciting than on the strip of land occupied by casinos, theaters, restaurants, bars, bondage parlors and shoe-stores along the Royal Beach known as the NightWalk, to which Deva led her reluctant companion._

 

THE Sacred Pearl was the most exclusive sea-front casino on Transexual. Built on pilings over the black sand of the Royal Beach, with vast walls of storm-proof glass, it commanded a stunning ocean view and the highest prices. Faced with stiff competition, it fought hard to maintain its reputation as the planet's premier gaming establishment. In the past it had offered strip baccarat and anatomically-correct slots: now it had a mermaid.

Deva and Hallow arrived in time for the mermaid's show, in disguise. Deva's was not entirely successful, as she'd insisted on wearing her trademark red heels with a white bow and a tiara, but she was passably incognito in a hooded, black satin wrap. Hallow, cautious by nature and recognizable by now in his own right, took greater care and wore dark glasses.

Together they walked past the casino's long reflecting pool and through a portal of aromatic mist, passing beneath a statue of an eight-legged sea goddess, the eponymous Pearl nestled between her legs. Inside was an open space of endless black carpet, colorful gaming tables and graceful columns holding up a two-story ceiling. Huge salt-water tanks held an amazing variety of iridescent fish from the seas of Transexual, and the planet's wealthy strolled dis-affectedly among the tables, displaying their finery. At the far end of the room a swooping, shell-shaped staircase rose to the private rooms. Like most of its kind the Pearl was an expensive bordello as well as a casino, and it was owned by a woman who, it was rumoured, has run with pirates.

Deva and Hallow moved toward a crowded showroom door as fashionable Transexualians of all genders gambled for the right to address the mermaid. Deva's voluminous costume was out of style for the place, but Transexual encourages diversity, so no one paid her any mind.

Just as they came through the showroom door the houselights dimmed. Strange, echoing music filled the room and undulating light began to play over the audience and walls. In the center of the circular room a glistening white curtain enveloped the stage and as they watched translucent rocks at its base began to glow pink, orange and red, garlands of water dancing between them. The music rose and the sparkling curtain parted, revealing the giant champagne glass. Two meters high, big around as tub for four, and curled inside it was a mermaid. Bubbles cascaded from the ceiling, blue lights bathed the stage, and the mermaid began to sing.

“Oh, wow,” Deva said.

Never in her fifteen years had she heard anything like the mermaid's voice. It sent a lancing shiver through her. The mermaid sang no recognizable words but her voice was so pure, so keenly poignant, that it made Deva want to cry. It was like the songs of whales, or the cries of passion, and it was sad, so sad. The music ebbed and swelled, catching her up, swaying in a minor key and she felt something breaking open inside her. Something was happening in this room, something completely new, and all she knew was that she had to get closer to this compelling creature.

She moved forward as if bewitched. She slipped through the crowd, her eyes never once leaving the giant glass as the mermaid finished her song. Ignoring the murmurs of disapproval from the people ringing the stage she climbed onto the glowing rocks, pressing her hands against the glass bowl and staring, transfixed, at the mermaid.

The mermaid stared back, a harrowing experience as her eyes were those of a sea-dragon, bugling, opalescent, with snake-slit pupils. Her hair was long and wet, twining black and green, and it fell like seaweed to her waist. She wore a collar of twisted black coral that fanned behind her head, and her skin was the palest, palest green, even to the tips of her naked, upturned breasts. She did not smile.

Deva, petrified, let her eyes drift over the rest of the mermaid's body. At the creature's waist grew a ragged fringe, kelp-like and swimming with the colors of oil on water. The fringe ran down both sides of the mermaid’s tail, her magnificent, aqua-marine tail. How heavy her tail was, how solid, yet how gracefully it moved! Deva, Princess of Transexual, gazed open-mouthed at the mermaid and knew, just  _knew,_ she was real. A memory came to her, from deepest childhood, of how she'd first seen colored lights playing in a fountain in the palace, how she'd stretched out her three-year-old hand to catch some of it, and how she had cried when it turned to plain, colorless water in her palm, how her retinue of caretakers tried to console her but no one understood! Here, now, before her seemed to be the embodiment of that magic water; here, alive, and real, real, real. 

“Hey!” A rude voice cut into her reverie. The mermaid looked up and blinked her glowing eyes. “You! Urchin! Geddown from there!”

Without moving her head, Deva reached up and pulled the hood from her head. She shook free her glossy black curls. Reaching a hand back behind her toward the voice she made a fist, prominently displaying the Ring of State she wore. With her other hand she worked the clasp at her throat and the cloak fell away, revealing her resplendent in a jeweled corset and hand-knotted fishnets. The voice behind her gasped.

“Oh! Princess!” it said, and an unctuous note slipped into the second word. Immediately the crowd took it up: “Princess! The princess is here!”

Deva, ignoring them, bit her painted lips and leaned in closer to the glass bowl.

“Perhaps you have to ask her her name,”she murmured aloud. The unctuous man who had spoken before, a slick little man in a sharkskin tuxedo who was the casino manager, laughed, not quite politely.

“Since she speaks no human tongue, Your Highness, that would be difficult. Besides,” he added, “That has already been tried.”

Deva glanced at him and turned back to the mermaid. She met the mermaid's eyes, and her young heart began to break.

“What is it?” she begged in a whisper. “What's the key?” To her dismay, the mermaid only smiled, pulled her great, shimmering tail into the glass, and turned away.

“Perhaps the princess would care to try her hand at the games?” the manger purred.

 

LATER, after the mermaid had retired behind her curtain and Hallow had straightened out the manager –the princess did not pay for the privilege of viewing the mermaid, the princess could buy this whole casino out from underneath his slimy butt if she wanted to-- they came to an agreement. Deva could visit the mermaid as many times as she wanted, and could try as many times as she liked to unlock the secret code, but, whatever the outcome, the Sacred Pearl owned the exclusive rights to the story. Barbary Lux, the casino's owner, was away on another of Transexual's island chains buying exotic fish, so the manager “Eli Apodes, at your service,”) made the arrangements in her absence.

Back at the palace, Deva was aflame with excitement. Surely she, with her special insights and skills, could triumph where others had failed.

“Mark me, Hallow,” she said, mounting the stairs to her chamber, “Before the smallest moon has shed her shadow, that mermaid will be mine. After all, if I can't do it, who can?”

Hallow smiled at her conviction. “Then I wish you luck, Princess,” he said. “But if you're determined to seduce a mermaid, may I make a suggestion?”

“Yes?”

“Lose the fishnets.”

Surprised, Deva looked at her legs, shrugged, and went to bed.

 

THE next night, she was back at the Pearl, anxiously awaiting the end of the mermaid's show. She'd ditched Remora, leaving her a message to join her (Deva) on an island on the other side of the planet. Hallow of course came along, but she commanded him to keep to the background, as she wished to focus completely in the mermaid.

Once the crowd had filtered from the room she took Eli's offered hand and approached the mermaid's glass, her heart pounding. She'd dressed especially for the night in a space-suit of purple spandex trimmed with black sequins, a sheer, floating cape of black chiffon falling from high collar and long, shiny, latex boots. She also wore black seams instead of fishnets, despite an initial urge to spite Hallow just for the sake of it. Who knew, maybe he was right.

Deva stepped to the mermaid's glass, opened her mouth, and realized she hadn't the slightest idea what to say.

“Um, hello,” she said, and earned herself a bored glance from the mermaid for her trouble.

“How are you?” she continued, and the mermaid responded with a slow, completely neutral blink.

Peeved, Deva drew herself up. “I am the Princess of Transexual!” she announced, and was rewarded by the mermaid rolling over and presenting her mint-green back.

Well! This would never do, especially in front of Hallow and Eli. She walked to the other side of the glass and tried again.

“Um, you're very beautiful,” she said shyly, and it was true, she was. Even without the colored lights she was strange and dazzling: alien, yet indigenous at the same time. Her beauty was almost hypnotic, and Deva noticed for the first time her fingernails were the pale, mottled blue of abalone shell.

The mermaid looked up, and Deva's heart jumped. At last, getting somewhere! “Uh...would you like a fish?” Deva asked.

With a contemptuous swing of her great tail the mermaid swept around, sending a huge gush of water over the lip of the glass. Deva leaped back just in time to avoid getting drenched, and the mermaid curled into a ball, burying her head under her tail.

“Well, this has been fun,” Hallow said from the shadows. “Come along, Deva. Let's not bother the mermaid any more than we have to.”

“Don't you _dare_ tell me what to do!” Deva shouted at him. “That's not your job and you know it!” She was humiliated by her failure and keenly disappointed, and she couldn't stand to be mocked. For a second her lower lip quivered and her throat tightened, but she swallowed hard and bit back her tears. She looked at the mermaid's defensive posture for a moment, and knew what she had to do. She leaned forward and pressed her lips gently against the bowl of the mermaid's glass, so the vibrations of her words would carry, and said, softly, “I'm sorry.”

She left the casino without success that night, but Deva promised Hallow she wasn't finished. She still had a fortnight before her vow expired, before the smallest moon shed her shadow. She didn't know that the mermaid sang in the casino against her will, that she had been taken, shrieking, from the ocean depths by men with nets and guns, or that her song was the cry of a broken heart. Deva also did not know that after she left, the mermaid had swum down to the bottom of her bowl and pressed her delicate fingers to the rosy print left by the princess' lips.

 

DEVA did not give up. She surprised Hallow by sticking to her vow, though he remained unimpressed, saying that the mermaid belonged in an institute of oceanography, not a casino. Deva dismissed his concerns, and she attended the mermaid's show every night, trying every phase she could think of to arouse the creature's passion. “I love you,” didn't work, neither did “Hey, baby, let's fuck.” “What nice scales you have,” likewise struck out, though the mermaid, apparently recognizing the new pattern in her lie, seemed to anticipate Deva's visits, swimming to the side of the glass and propping her arms on the rim as if to say “Well, what is it tonight?” Encouraged, Deva read everything she could on the oceans and sea life, and for the whole next week tried every word of phrase she thought might induce the transformation.

“Starfish,” she'd say. 

No response.

“Tsunami.”

No response.

“Mid-oceanic volcanic ridge.”

No response.

And all the while the mermaid continued to sing, her song ever more poignant as the nights wore on. Deva listened, increasingly affected by the music, consumed with an increasingly irrational fury whenever someone approached the glass. It was almost too much to bear, that the mermaid's beauty and song should move her so much while she should be unable to communicate with the object of her desire.

“Grouper,” she's say. 

No response.

“Kelp,” she'd say.

No response.

“Cod-liver oil?” 

And so one, until her voice gave out.

“What is it?!” she finally cried in frustration one night, in the small hours between moon-set and the rising of the star. “Why can't I talk to you? You hear me, that I can see. You respond with your face and eyes to my voice and my tone. Can you speak in any tongue at all? All the legends speak of mermaids transforming, they _can't_ be wrong!” The possibility that the legends _were_ wrong, and that the Sacred Pearl was just exploiting them to string her along was suddenly too overwhelming on top of her frustration, and Deva collapsed against the bowl, bursting into tears.

She stopped when she felt the touch. Looking up, she realized that the mermaid had come to the side of the glass and that her chin was being held in long, green fingers. The mermaid was looking at her, really  _looking_ at her, and she wore an expression of such sorrow, such empathy and concern. Amazed, Deva Reached up and enfolded the mermaid's hand in her own. Surely there was something she could say, something that, even if it did not cause the transformation, would tell the mermaid how she felt. Everything she had tried had failed...the only thing that came into her mind was a song, an old Earthish song from long, long ago, that had been a favorite of her dead father's, and she sang it to the mermaid with all the anguish her aching, fifteen-year-old heart could muster:

_Wise men say_

_Only fools rush in_

_But I can't help_

_Falling in love with you._

 

_Shall I stay?_

_Would it be a sin?_

_If I can't help_

_Falling in love with you?_

 

_Like a river flows_

_Surely to the sea_

_Darling so it goes_

_Some things were meant to be_

 

_Take my hand_

_Take my whole life too_

_For I can't help_

_Falling in love with you._

She cried a little as she sang, but to her amazement tears slipped from the mermaid's eyes as well, and continued even after the song was done, tears that caused the mermaid more pain than Deva knew, for every tear a mermaid sheds is, like a pearl, formed around a tiny grain of sand.

“What is it?” Deva asked gently. “Is it me I'm not hurt, I'm okay, really,” but the mermaid continued to weep. “What is it?” she asked again. “Oh, please, can't you tell me what's wrong?” And in answer, the mermaid swam to the opposite side of the bowl and held her arms out longingly toward a bank of curtain-draped windows.

“The windows?” Deva said, not getting it. “You want the windows?” She walked over to them and fingered the dark fabric. The mermaid strained forward, bracing one hand on the rim of her glass and holding the other one out, pleadingly, toward the princess.

“You want me to open the curtains?” Deva asked. “Okay.” The heavy draperies swept back, and a panoramic view of the ocean filled the windows, moonlight glinting like thousands of silver fish, on its rolling surface. 

The mermaid, sighed, relaxing, drinking in the vision as a suffocating person might drink in air. Her face, though, remained eloquent of suffering, and her eyes never left the glimmering sea.

Deva was stunned. The enormousness of it struck her all at once, knocking the breath out of her. “You're not happy here!” she cried. “You would return to the ocean! That's why your songs are so sad!” Suddenly, the grotesqueness of a such a magnificent creature being forced to sing before a crowd of gawkers –herself included-- struck her full force, and she was rocked by a wave of remorse. How could she have been so blind? Maybe the mermaid didn't  _want_ to be sold to the highest bidder! Maybe she ought to be allowed a choice, like ever other sentient being on this, of all planets!

Deva writhed with a completely unfamiliar emotion, one she had never before experienced in her short life,  _shame,_ for the Queen of Transexual sits upon a throne, which sits upon a stone, graven with the word CONSENT.

Deeply repentant, she faced the mermaid.

“I'm going to set you free,” she said. 

 

ELI Apodes was a neat man, who liked things just so and on time. He adhered to strict mealtimes and a strict bedtime, so he was more than a little perturbed to be suddenly awakened by someone sitting on top of him.

“Apodes!”

He struggled to come awake, realizing as he did that a small, strong form was straddling him in the bed, and had a hold of his pajama top below his chin. As he came fully awake and switched on his bedside lamp, he saw it was the Princess of Transexual.

“What?!” he cried in terror. “How did you get in here?”

“Never mind,” Deva snarled. “Just tell me: where did you get the mermaid? How did the Pearl come to have her?”

“You're mad!” Eli spat, pulling his pajamas away from her. “I don't have to tell you that!”

Deva seemed to consider this. “That's true,” she said mildly, “so Ill ask you nicely.” She stretched her body out full-length on his and began playing with a lock of his hair. “Eli? Sweetheart?” she cooed. “Where'd you get the mermaid? Your Princess wants to know, and she's not leaving until she finds out.”

Apodes rolled out from underneath her, got out of bed and snatched up his bathrobe. “If you must know,” he said, drawing his robe around him with as much dignity as he could muster, “We caught her. We were looking for bio-luminescent jellyfish for the black-light tanks and we caught her. When we saw what we had, and heard her sing, we decided to keep her. There's no law against it.”

“She's sentient, Apodes,” Deva informed him. “She's intelligent and perfectly aware. I've seen the evidence for myself. Keeping her in captivity is tantamount to slavery.”

Eli drew himself up. He was a shrewd man, and he recognized that he was in deep water. “It is slavery only if she is a citizen of Transexual,” he said. “Or if a scientific panel finds her to be sentient. With all due respect, Princess, your testimony along is not enough.”

“But it wouldn't hurt, either,” Deva mused aloud. Some inner voice was telling her to avoid this tack. A panel could take months, even years of study. It might even mean the mermaid would never see the ocean again. She smiled brightly. 

“I'd like to buy her, she said, and wasn't happy when Eli laughed. 

“I'm afraid that's impossible, Princess. The Pearl's profits have gone up eighteen percent since the mermaid began her show, and besides, she's not mine to sell. She belongs to Barbary Lux, and I do not know where, at present, she is. In short, Princess, the mermaid is not for sale.”

Deva thought fast. Plans A and B had failed, so she went for plan C: buy time. She forced down her rage and spoke with mock resignation. “Well then,” she said, “If that's the way it is, then that's the way it is. But her very intelligence makes getting her to transform ll the more difficult. I've gotten nowhere, despite all I've tried...I'm afraid it's going to take a bit longer than I first thought. Is that going to be a problem?”

Eli eyed her suspiciously. She had to assault him in bed for this? “No,” he said carefully. “Our agreement is open-ended, just so long as we have exclusive rights to the story. The longer it takes, the better, in fact. People are beginning to come from all over the planet just to see you.”

“Then its all settled,” Deva said, rising. “And I'll go now. Sorry I woke you up.”

“Any time,” Eli said dryly, and opened his bedroom door with an exaggerated flourish so she could pass. But Deva, ignoring him, had already climbed out the same third-floor window through which she'd come. 

 

BACK at the palace, she paced her chambers, seething. Hallow watched her from his position leaning against one of the massive posts of her satin-draped bed.

“First I tried to appeal to his sense of decency,” she railed, “But apparently he hasn't got one.” Hallow just listened, silently noting the issuance of the word _decency_ from Deva's mouth. A step forward. He thought, but Deva was going on:

“So then I offered to buy her. 'Not for sale' he tells me! Then it almost got into this big, hairy mess about sentience, but I avoided that. I haven't the time for a scientific inquiry or some kind of trial. The poor thing's been locked up in that bowl for months already. I don't want her to spend any more time there that absolutely necessary.” She came to a halt and planted her hands on her hips. “Time… is of the essence.” she announced darkly.

Hallow sighed. “So what are you going to do?” he asked.

Deva pivoted, hands still on her hips. “I'm going,” she said with a feral smile, “To steal her.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It's the only way. Apodes won't sell her, he won't let her go, and I don't want to wait. So I'll just, you know, take her.”

Hallow shook his head in disbelief. “Deva,” he said. “You're telling me you're going to kidnap a full-grown mermaid from one of the most popular round-the-clock casinos on Transexual, without the owners noticing? Just how do you plan to do it?”

“I don't know yet,” Deva replied. “But there has to be a way: I want it.”

“Deva… if you take that mermaid, then you'll be committing a crime. Apodes is right: by current law they have every right to keep her.”

“Then we'll change the laws!” Deva cried. _“After_ she's gone! You know as well as I do there have ever been laws about mermaids simply because the law has never been faced with one before. And if I have to do jail time for my actions, so be it...but somehow, I don't think that's very likely.” She smiled meanly. “Do you?”

“Deva,” Hallow tried one last time. “That mermaid belongs to the Sacred Pearl. Until there is a law prohibiting the possession of mermaids, removing her without their permission is theft. I cannot allow you to commit a crime, not while I'm here. I'm sworn to protect you, even from yourself. If you continue with this scheme, I'll have no choice. I'll have to tell your mother.”

Deva stared at him for a moment, then her eyes narrowed.

“If you do that,” she purred, “Then I wont be so...careful, around you. I know you're heterosexual, Hallow. Oh, I know all about your Vows of Pure Science, your vows of abstinence. I know I can't force you to touch me or share my bed, but if you run to Mummy with this news I swear I'll make your life very “hard” indeed.”

“Like you don't already, Deva,” he said lightly, trying to joke, but she wasn't having it.

“Oh, Hallow,” she said. “I haven't even tried yet.” She walked towards him, with a sensuous, stalking gait. “You and your brethren serve the Truth? So tell me truthfully, Hallow. I've been a very good girl where you're concerned...haven't it?” She stopped very close to him, her breasts almost touching his crossed arms. He looked down at her, at her shining eyes, her wet lips. 

“I can always leave you, Princess.” he said quietly.

“And you can walk away from your five million a year, too,” she replied. “That goes not to you but to your Order, to the charities it supports. Oh, I know all about the deal between you and Mummy. She wanted a chaperone I couldn't corrupt so she bought herself an Asmovian. Clever, when you think about it.” She gazed at him sadly. “I want this,” she said. “The Sacred Pearl is a _casino,_ for fuck's sake, the loss of a mermaid isn't going to hurt them any. They'll live without their fourteen percent. She's sentient, she's suffering, and I'm going to free her. You can go to my mother if you want, Hallow, but it's going to cost you.” She leaned up on her tiptoes, placing one gentle, precise, lingering kiss on his cheek.

“As for your concern about me getting caught,” she smiled up at him, dimpling, “I suggest you help me to make sure that doesn't happen.” Trailing a teasing finger down his chest she backed away, turning from him as she went.

 

UNFORTUNATELY, it wasn't as easy as she thought it was going to be. Her first thought had been to sneak into the mermaid's showroom between performances and remove one of the glass window panes, then tip the champagne glass over so the mermaid could dive to freedom. A preliminary reconnaissance scotched that plan, however: the Pearl's windows were unbreakable glass, permanently installed. No going out that way.

Deva next turned to the plans of the building and of the street. She found to her dismay all of the Pearl's exits led to the street in front, that direct access to the beach was blocked by other buildings. The nearest access point to the beach was a stairway two blocks down, and the mermaid, she knew, couldn't be out of water for very long at all.

For several nights in a row she wrestled with it, always coming back to that cursed distance to the stairs (stairs!) Creating a diversion inside the casino while accomplices (who?) snuck the mermaid out was one thing, but how to get her, unnoticed, down the street? Neither cars nor aircraft were allowed on the NightWalk, and an enclosed, water-filled, mermaid-sized rolling pushcart of some kind was not exactly stealthy.

With growing dread, she felt the mental walls closing in around her, choking off her options. Weighing too on her mind was Hallow's silence since the confrontation, his brief answers to direct questions, his wounded eyes. What she'd done was most unfair, part of her acknowledged, and she realized she'd been counting on a quick resolution of the matter to win his forgiveness. As the nights rolled inexorably past and no solution presented itself, she sank into a depression, realizing with a leaden heart that she might have alienated him for no good reason, and that if she didn't think of something soon, the mermaid was going to spend the rest of her life in that damnable bowl.

 

THREE nights later, Deva sat nursing a toxic brew t her favorite sea-front, lesbian dive bar, the Bearded Clam. No answers had come to her about her problem, and so she'd slipped out of the palace in disguise to come to this comforting place with its cheesy décor and low lights, to be alone with her unhappiness. She sat at an isolated booth near the front, facing the street, instead of at a table overlooking the water. She just wasn't up to looking at the sea.

How the hell was she going to get the mermaid out of the Sacred Pearl? How was she going to get her to the ocean? She watched from her deep hood as warm rain flowed down the window. It was a fairly heavy rain for the season, harbinger of the monsoons to come, and except for the ten or twenty exuberant souls who had taken advantage of it to dance naked down the street, the road beyond was more or less deserted. Ordinarily, she enjoyed the rain and would have joined the dancers clad only in flowers, but tonight she was sad, and the rain looked only like tears. She thought of the mermaid again and took another swig of her potent drink.

A flash of lightning and a close-following crack of thunder sent the dancers scurrying for cover, and Deva's attention shifted blurily to the filling gutters. The stuff washing down Transexual's gutters was entertaining even on a slow night, and with a heavy rain like this it could be most enlivening. Condoms, used and unused, were common, and Deva had once seen a whole flotilla of inflated prophylactics streaming down the gutter, each one containing a tiny, rolled-up message. And look, right there, across the street: here came a perfectly good under-wire brassiere, trundling along like a double-humped serpent before veering suddenly into a storm drain.

Really, Deva thought fuzzily, a mild irritation rising through her inebriation. People ought to be more careful. Anything flushed into the planet's sewer systems went to waste-treatment plants, but the storm drains weren't part of that system. They existed solely to channel run-off surface water. Really, she thought. You'd think by now people would know that the storm drains drained directly into the o--

Her eyes snapped open. She spilled her drink. She was suddenly very sober. “Holy shit!” she exclaimed. “Holy shit!”

 

A FEW hours later, she returned to her chambers, where Hallow was pacing, angry and frightened by her disappearance.

“Where have you been?” he demanded as soon as he entered.

“In the storm drains,” she replied, and shook her soaking-wet body like a dog to prove it, flinging water everywhere.

“ _What?!”_ Hallow gasped. “You might have drowned!”

“Yes, but I didn't,” Deva answered, crossing the room to her computer. “I was very careful.” She keyed in her royal code and called up a schematic of the capitol's storm drains, searching for the area around the Sacred Pearl. In a moment she had it.

“Yes!” she cried triumphantly. 

“Deva, what _are_ you doing?” hallow came closer. 

“Look,” she answered, moving aside so he could see the screen. “Here's the Sacred Pearl, and here's the nearest storm drain, right across the street! With the cover off it's a least a meter wide, as are the pipes, and with this rain there would be more than enough water for her to swim it, and it drains right to the ocean! I can order the cover removed, and then all I have to do is get her out of the showroom, out the front doors and across the street, maybe fifty meters. Fifty meters! I can do it!”

Hallow closed his eyes. “Deva,” he said, his voice tight. “For the last time. Please do not do this thing.”

Deva looked into the eerie light of the computer screen. There was something she had to say, something she'd never said or thought before...she spoke slowly, feeling her way.

“Hallow...she's so unhappy. You've heard her songs, you've felt her sorrow. She's intelligent and she is suffering.” She turned to him. “You and your Order, you give the profits of your scientific researches to charity, and why? To alleviate suffering, yes? To make the planet a better place? I would alleviate the suffering of this one creature. I know that by the law of the land it isn't legal but...but...sometimes there is a difference between what is _legal_ and what is _just.”_ Yes, that was it. “And if I were but a common citizen I could take refuge in the law, use it to turn my back on what is painful and unjust, or work within the law, at no risk to myself...but I am not a common citizen, am I? I would do this thing, and I alone have the power and the privilege to assume the risk. I'm sorry I tried to alleviate her suffering by inflicting suffering on you. That was wrong. But I am going to do this thing, Hallow. Because I must. Because it's right. And because...because I love her, Hallow.”

Hallow regarded her for a long moment. For all her sophistication and experience, he'd never heard her profess love before, and she'd never risked her own neck for anyone or anything before. His mission, imparted by the Queen herself, was to oversee not only Deva's physical safety but her emotional development as well. Or, if you like, her spiritual development.

“If that is so, Princess,” he said, “Then I will help you.” And then he took a lurching step backwards as Deva launched her full weight into his arms.

“Thank you thank you thank you!” she sang. “I knew you would! Now we just wait for the next heavy rain!”

She danced off to her bedchamber, and Hallow sighed. Deva.

 

DEVA woke to the sound of rain. She lipped out of bed and padded naked to the windows. Rain poured from the sky, beating down the palm fronds below.

Now or never, she thought, and dressed quickly in a long-sleeved catsuit of layered fringe, one of the few all-black garments she owned. She roused Hallow in his adjoining room, and together they stepped into the hall.

“That wasn't very funny, Deva!” snapped an accusing voice and the both jumped, startled, spinning to see a very pissed-off Remora D'Maline standing in the hall, a lightning-bolt emblazoned traveling case at her tapping foot.

“Oh, hi, Remora,” Deva said.

“I went to Ganymede, as you said,” Remora fumed. “I _waited_ for you, for more than a week, and you never showed! Then I turn on the news, and there you are at the Sacred Pearl and its this huge _thing,_ 'The Princess and The Mermaid'! If you didn't want to go with me you could have just _said,_ you know!” She teared up, honestly hurt.

“You're right,” Deva said. “That was completely fucked up. I'm sorry.” She approached Remora as one might approach an unexploded bomb. “And it was a terrible mistake on my part. Because, you see, I have need of you...”

“Ah, God,” Hallow moaned. 

 

DEVA, Hallow and Remora arrived at the Sacred Pearl just before the mermaid's show. Remora's ill humor had evaporated now that she was on a secret mission with the princess. Unfortunately, she was so excited she kept stepping on Hallow's feet because she wasn't watching where she was going.

“Ah, Princess,” Eli Apodes said, intercepting them in the foyer. “We haven't seen you in some time! Most distressing, your absence! I can't tell you how we've missed you!” He took her arm in a proprietary grip.

You just keep thinking that, Deva thought, but she smiled and said “It's good to be back. I have a whole  _raft_ of new phrases to try on the mermaid! In fact, with your indulgence, I'll just nip into the showroom now and try out one or two before the show…”

“Ah, but I'm afraid that is impossible,” Apodes replied. “You see, we have a television crew here tonight to film the competition for a planet-wide broadcast. If you don't wish to participate, of course we understand, but if you do, how delightful! But the crew is setting up their lights in the showroom at the moment, so I'm afraid a private audience wit the mermaid is quite impossible.” With a patronizing pat of her hand he released her, his slick smile never wavering.

“Now what?” Hallow murmured in her ear, followed by an “Ow!” as Remora, crowding behind him, trod once more on his heels.

“It's not good,” Deva breathed in answer. “Like it or not as soon as that crew sees me I'm gonna be the prime draw. I—” she broke off. “Of course!” she exclaimed, and then grabbed both her friends to whisper in their ears. 

THE mermaid sang, her voice so raw that many in the audience were moved to tears. The cameras rolled, recording it all. As the mermaid's song died away, Deva, standing just outside the showroom curtains, breathed a prayer to the spirit of her dead father. “It's star time,” she breathed.

_Ah-ah!_

The music poured in, all heavy bass and reverb and she flung open the curtains, let the spot-lights find her, hearing the crowd gasp, as she gave them what they wanted.

_Now I don't hardly know her_

_But I think I could love her_

_Crimson and clover!_

The crowd exploded into applause, delighted. How appropriate! The song rolled on, catching everybody up as the princess snaked and shimmied into the center of the room. The cameras, the operators ecstatic, followed her every move.

_Ah-ah!_

_Now when she comes walkin' over_

_An' I been waitin' to show her_

_Crimson and Clover_

_Over and over!_

And she exploded into motion, the fringe on her catsuit whipping as she spun to the music, dancing out of the showroom and into the casino itself. The crowd and cameras followed, thronging the door. As soon as they were gone, Hallow grabbed Remora's hand and dragged her down to the base of the mermaid's glass. Frantically, he began to pull away the fake rocks and sea-shells, instructing Remora to do the same as he pulled a set of wheels from the bag he carried.

“When the glass is free,” he said, “I'll tip it so you can attach the wheels. And when I say push, Remora, you push!”

Out on the main floor, Deva continued to sing, kicking off her heels so she could climb up onto a baize-covered gaming table.

_Yeah,_ she sang, and  _Ba-da-da-da-da-da!_ the crowd sang back,

_I'm not such a sweet thing_

_Ba-da-da-da-da-da!_

_I wanna do ev'rything_

_Ba-da-da-da-da-da!_

_One beautiful feeling_

_Ba-da-da-da-da-da!_

_Crimson and Clover_

_Ba-da-da-da-da-da!_

_Over and over!_

She danced from table-top to table-top, leaping onto a craps table before the great plate-glass windows overlooking the sea. The storm outside raged on, lightning turning her slender form into a fringe-lashed silhouette as the song became repetitive, hypnotic:

_Crimson and Clover_

_Over and over_

_Crimson and Clover_

_Over and over_

_Crimson and Clover_

_Over and over_

_Crimson and Clover_

_Over and over!_

The crowd pushed close to her and she closed her eyes, floating on the melody, abandoning herself to the hands that reached up to caress her body, twining through the fringe. No one noticed when the showroom curtains parted and the mermaid's glass rolled between them, the mermaid curled up inside, two people pushing it toward the front doors.

The glass was almost to the threshold of the mist-shrouded front portal when a terrible shriek rent the air. Deva snapped out of her song, looking up to see Eli Apodes pointing at the glass and shrieking hysterically. He ran towards it, and Deva watched as Remora saw him and staggered back into the stem of the top-heavy glass. Horrified, she watched as it began to fall.

“ _Duuuuuuck!”_ she yelled at Hallow, who was it its path. He dodged out of the way, but nothing could stop the heavy glass as, with water, mermaid and all it crashed through the portal, shattering into a million jagged shards.

Deva shook off the hands and leaped from the table, running for the door, swerving around Apodes who stood rooted, hands clasped to the sides of his face. She jumped over the broken glass and through the mist,  _knowing_ she would see her beloved mermaid thrashing helplessly on the ground, bleeding from a thousand cuts.

Nothing. No mermaid. Wha--?

And the mermaid exploded upward from the long reflecting pool in front of the casino, into which she'd been thrown by the forward momentum of the falling glass, freedom evident in every line of her body as she twisted high into the night sky. She landed with a mighty splash then swam for the far end of the long pool, toward the open storm drain, arcing in the joyous leaps of a dolphin as Deva ran along side, matching her leap for leap, cheering her head off.

The drain was across the street, open and roped off per Deva's instructions. Could she make the jump? No matter, they could carry her that fall if they had to! The mermaid gathered speed, water forming a bow wave before her. She was going to try to make it!

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?! Bellowed a voice, and Deva nearly jumped out of her skin. She'd never heard such a loud, unamplified voice! The mermaid too pulled up short, with a violent, hissing splash. Deva spun around and beheld a diminutive woman with the biggest voice and most commanding pose she'd ever beheld. She wore an eye-patch and suspended from her belt was a mean-looking cat o'nine tails. In her hand she held a plastic bag containing a tropical fish. This, then, had to be Barbary Lux, owner of the Sacred Pearl casino.

“APODES!” she roared, and he came flapping up.

“Barbary?” he quailed.

“Apodes,” she said, cocking her hips, and Deva was almost surprised to hear her speak at a normal volume. “What is going on? Why is my mermaid in the reflecting pool? Why are my patrons on the front walk instead of at the tables, and is this the princess?” Her voice took on a tone of wonder at this last.

“Yes,” Deva replied. “I'm taking your mermaid,” she added, figuring well, game's blown anyway.

“Why?” Barbary asked politely. 

“Because she's sentient, she's intelligent and she's suffering,” Deva said. Immediately Eli started waving his arms in the air.

No!” he cried. “There's no proof of any of that!” Barbary glanced t the cameras and gently shushed him.

“Why, I had no idea,” she said to Deva. “Sentient, you say. Then she must be released immediately.”

“But, the contest!” Eli began, but Barbary, whose head came only to his bottom vest button, grabbed his cravat, pulling him down to her level.

“Eli,” she said patiently. “Which would you rather have, a mermaid or the undying gratitude of the heir to the throne?” She stared him n he eye until he got it, then they both turned beaming faces to the cameras.

“We have exclusive rights to the story,” Eli said through smiling teeth.

“ _Do_ we.” Barbary replied. She turned to the Deva. “Then I know the perfect place for the release. Come along, everyone!”

 

THANKS to Barbary's intervention, the mermaid did not have to ride to the sea through a storm drain. She rode in a tank-equipped van borrowed from the Transexualian Aquarium, and she was carried to it in a canvas sling by a team of volunteers, Sacred Pearl patrons all, who sluiced her body in sea water along the way. She was then transported to a salt-water grotto on the Aquarium grounds overlooking the ocean from the top of a basalt cliff. The water below was very deep, and a strong out flowing current would carry her far as soon as she made the dive. The TV crew, more than happy with the turn in events, would film the dive from small boats below the cliff, and the Sacred Pearl would bask in the public glow as the mermaid's enlightened savior. Deva rode the entire way in the van, holding the mermaid's hand.

At the grotto, Deva asked for a moment alone with the mermaid. She was gazing out over the ocean, her strange flesh reflecting the moonlight in iridescent waves, and for the first time, Deva saw her smile.

“I wish you could stay with me forever,” she said softly, kneeling beside the pool, “But I know you have to go home.” Her voice quavered, because she knew this was the last time he'd ever see this magic creature, but she choked it out anyway:

“With all my heart I wish I could keep you...but I know I have to set you free.”

A single salty tear fell from her eye, but was checked by a strange sound, unlike anything she'd ever heard before. Puzzled, she raised her eyes to the mermaid.

The legend...was wrong. The mermaid did not transform into a human woman, with a human woman's hips, legs and thighs. She kept her long tail, but, as with females everywhere, if she so chose, she could reveal her secrets.

The sound Deva had heard was a little mew, needy and teasing, as musical as the Mermaid's song, and on her sea-dragon face was an expression that was both welcoming and decidedly, well, _naughty._ And folded between the topmost scales of her tail there appeared a shadowed crease, little indentation which deepened into a shell-pink valley of tender flesh. The Mermaid held out a willowy hand, and Deva took it as if there were no other course of action possible in the whole world, shedding her own clothes and stepping into the warm salt water of the lava-rock grotto.

O, sweet, lovely females. O innocent sexuality. Swimming like twins in amniotic fluid, sporting like otters, they luxuriated in their own softness, their own pearly moisture. And what was it like, to finally slip a tongue into that most secret of secret grottoes? If you asked her, Deva might smile and tell you, not so different as you might expect. We are none of us too far from sea water, after all.

When they were finished, when Deva's skin still tingled from the scraping of scales, she put on her clothes, the mermaid dove deep into the water of the grotto and then exploded skyward, silhouetted for one brief, stunning second against the largest, fullest moon, and then was gone, diving into the great, black ocean.

Deva knelt on the sleek basalt of the cliff and wept, watching the rings of the mermaid's wake ripple out wider and wider. She drew a shuddering sigh and stood to walk away.

“I am proud of you, my daughter,” came a voice, and then Queen Electra detached herself from the shadows where she blended so well, moonlight soft on her sable skin and black robes.

“Mummy!” Deva cried and fell into her arms. The Queen kissed her tear-streaked face.

“How did you find me?” she cried, and the Queen smiled.

“I saw you on television,” she replied. “And then we found Hallow and he told us where you' gone. Now listen to me, young one,” She took Deva's chin in her hand. “In time you will rule this planet, and you will place the concern of its inhabitants above your own, _all_ its inhabitants. From what I have seen here, you seem on a fair way towards keeping that promise, and I am proud of you.” She kissed her daughter on the lips, and then glided away to her waiting transport. “Come home when you are ready,” she called back over her shoulder.

Deva lingered on the cliff, looking out over the ocean. The last of the ripples from the mermaid's passing were disappearing. Then she turned back towards the glittering, kaleidoscopic city, where the party never stopped, and began to walk towards home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
